Element Of Blank
by Crystella Shan
Summary: They can't seem to remember a beginning. dmhg


**Disclaimer:** Not mine. _(rolls eyes)_

**A/N:** Just a very cliche-ish drabble that i came up with a while back but never really got around uploading. By now you'll probably have realized that i like to screw with timelines. Due to a general lack of creativity, i suppose, or habit. Shrugs.

**_Element of Blank_**

He could remember, vaguely, how he felt when she told him it was over.

Rainwater stinging in his eyes. A slow dead numbness weighing him to the ground. Half-shadows everywhere. Everything was in shades and shades of grey. There was nothingness all around but he was still there, somehow. He felt like a phantom, soaking in the rain and the night, the ghost of what was left between them_(Potter?)_, and wondered if she planned this all along._(maybe right from the start, or was there even a start to begin with?) _

Still, her back view was lovely, even when she left him to die.

_(Before.)_

All he wanted was to go into the bloody pub.

He found the scene utterly dramatic, like something out of a chapter of a romance novel and besides, he'd lost the penchant for theatrics a long, long time ago. Yet somehow they found themselves standing outside, in the middle of the goddamned rain when they should be inside that dingy, isolated and best of all, _dry_ muggle bar Hermione had so cleverly suggested for their rendezvous.

Ha. Draco Malfoy. At a run-down muggle pub in the middle of nowhere. Willingly. It must be snowing in Hell.

_I want to keep us a secret. They don't have to know._

He probably gave in to her too many times.

"Malfoy, damn it, are you listening? I said - "

He grabbed her arm so fast then, her wrist hurt from his grip. The rain made everything look hazy and grey.

"We should go inside."

"Let go of my arm, Malfoy." She said slowly, frost coated on her words.

The rain had never felt so cold before.

"It hurts, let me go!" Her voice cracked at the last word.

Perhaps hell _had_ frozen over when he decided that Hermione Granger was worth more than her homework notes or a look, or two, or three. And perhaps, right now, it was raining there, it was pouring in hell and he was standing right in centre of its freezing core.

_I'm stopping this. You knew from the start, you knew it was impossible._

_Merlin woman, we've been through this before. C'mon. Let's get inside first before you freeze us both to death. Maybe today there'll be something decent to drink. _

_No, Draco._

_Don't you get it Hermione? I care for you. And only Merlin knows why but I think I love you, and I know you feel the same. Isn't that more than-_

_Malfoy. I've never said I loved you once._

_Drac-. Malfoy. Malfoy? Malfoy, damn it, are you listening to me? I said-_

Maybe he just wasn't enough.

_(And before.)_

She puts on her makeup and lipstick the same way a knight puts on armor. The muggle dressing mirror in her room reflects her_(they are just _muggles_ now, even though she used to live among them, used to _be_ one of them, but then again, she used to be so many things)_, clothed in crimson and gold, her frizzy curls flowing down her shoulder and spilling onto her back, just the way he liked it.

She ties her hair up into a tight bun before smoothing out her dress._(maybe it's easier this way)_

She looks lovely; the deep burgundy fabric of her dress makes her skin seem white in contrast. In the mirror, she easily schools her features into one that betrayed nothing of emotions. But as she gazes into the mirror, she can't help but be captivated by the look of her eyes. There was the same kind of edge in them that Harry had had for so long. And a hint of fear, alight in its murky brown depths. She never once deluded herself that they could ever escape this.

The earrings that Draco gave her are tucked away in a box, hidden from sight in one of her drawers.

"_What if someone walks in…"Hermione reasoned as Draco tried to drag her back into the empty prefect's room for another snogging session._

"_Well, then I hope it'll be Snape." Draco said, grinning, without letting go of her arm. _

"_Then I could enjoy watching that vein in his temple burst." Hermione laughed and he gently ran a hand in her hair as he kissed her._

It's raining again outside. The occasional lightning make the curtains glow for an instant and she tries to use more blusher on her pale cheeks. The crimson dress Ron gave her hugs her figure almost protectively, rustling softly as she moves.

She's afraid she might shatter when she breaks him.

But she can only die once_(she likes to think),_ and it would be for Harry.

_(Where was the beginning?)_


End file.
